Re: How Do You Reduce Multiple Elements in a List?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg33879] Re: How Do You Reduce Multiple Elements in a List?
- From: Tim Brophy <timbrophy at eircom.net>
- Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 06:12:29 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <a9r3ve$ltc$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi Bob,
This is a problem given at the 1990 programming competition at the
Mathematica conference. The following code, taken from Ilan Vardi's book
"Computational Recreations in Mathematica" will work:
In[1]:=Attributes[times]={Flat}
General::spell1: Possible spelling error: new symbol name "times" is similar
to existing symbol "Times".
Out[1] = {Flat}
In[2]:= times[{a_,m_},{a_,n_}]:=times[{a,m + n}]
In[3]:= RunEncode[x_List]:= List @@ times @@ ({#,1}& /@ x)
In[4]:= RunEncode[{1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,4,4,4,4,4,4}]
Out[4] = {{1,5},{2,3},{4,6}}
On 4/20/02 9:05 AM, in article a9r3ve$ltc$1 at smc.vnet.net, "Bob Harris"
<nitlion at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> This seems like such a simple thing, yet I've search through the big book
> trying to figure it out. Perhaps someone can help me...
>
> Given a list of integers that generally contains the same number many times,
> I'd like to reduce it to a list that just gives me the number/count pairs.
> For example, I'd like to convert the list
> {1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4}
> into
> {{1,5}, {2,3}, (4,6}}
>
> Is there a built-in function to do this? Seems like a histogramming
> operation, but I get no useful matches from ?*Hist*.
>
> Thanks,
> Bob H
>
>